frinkster writes: MINI USA has placed interactive billboards in 4 US cities (Chicago, Miami, New York and San Francisco) and invited a few hundred MINI owners in those cities to join their targeted "advertisement" pilot program. The owners sign up on MINI's website and receive an RFID keyfob in the mail. When that MINI owner drives by the billboard, a targeted message appears. What sort of messages will be shown? Well, that's where the fun comes in. Each owner tells MINI what to show when they drive by, such as "Jim, you are one sexy beast" or "nice to see you finally out of your mother's basement, Joe." If the pilot program is successful, MINI plans to put up more billboards in more cities and allow every MINI owner to participate.
MINI swears that no personal information in contained in the keyfobs and that all communication between the owner and user is subject to their privacy policy and thus the program is completely safe, but how well will they keep their billboard logs away from the prying eyes of local law enforcement or private detectives? And what are they doing to prevent "hackers" from changing the personal messages to insults, such as "Nice to see you finally emerge from your mother's basement"?